{"id":3765,"date":"2015-04-20T14:59:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-20T13:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=3765"},"modified":"2015-04-20T14:59:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-20T13:59:22","slug":"stop-slash-and-privatise-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=3765","title":{"rendered":"Stop slash and privatise agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

When Aneurin Bevan, chief architect of the NHS, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 perhaps he had a premonition of the state the service would be in two generations hence.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The NHS is at a crossroads — its very existence now hanging in the balance depending on who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got the keys to 10 Downing Street come May 8.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just take our word for it. That the NHS is under grave danger is an idea that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most accepted by those who know the health service and its patients most intimately \u00e2\u20ac\u201cNHS staff.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Changes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ian Evans, a biomedical scientist at Brighton and Sussex Hospitals University NHS Trust, has been working in the service for almost two decades and has noticed a stark difference in the way the NHS has been run since the coalition government took over in 2010.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re expected to do a lot more for a lot less in many ways,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThere\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a gradual expansion on the goodwill we provide. I joined in 1996, when the NHS needed investment and it was invested in.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bNow we are in a situation again, where we need investment but there hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been investment again. For example, our equipment, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s old, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dated. It breaks down on a regular basis. We keep getting \u00e2\u20ac\u0098thank you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 for staying a few hours later, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098thank you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 for coming in at night time to sort our machines, which are antiquated and unsafe.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Evans explained the critical role that pathology services plays for patients, services that have experienced deep cuts in the last five years.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bPathology services actually provide 80 per cent of diagnostic results which people actually act upon. But we get largely ignored because the political focus is on doctors and nurses. So because we are not political\u00e2\u20ac\u201dor at least in the public\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s view\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwe get attacked [by cuts] first.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Debbie Wilkinson has been a paramedic for the past 25 years and she contends that, over the past five years, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bthe service has changed more than I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen it change before.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWith respect to the cuts, each ambulance service is being expected to make 5 to 6 per cent of cuts over the last three years,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Wilkinson said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe cuts have come straight out of frontline responses. They could have come from elsewhere, but they come straight out of the frontline.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done is downgrade our 999 response. The idea of bringing more care into the home meant that they wanted us to upscale paramedics to paramedic practitioners and so give them more skills to enable to treat the patients at home and not have to take them into A&E.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat the reality is that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done the exact opposite of that,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Wilkinson added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve downgraded the frontline response from a qualified clinician to what we call an emergency care assistant. What used to be a two-year degree course now entails just a few weeks of training.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Liz McInnes MP for Heywood and Middleton spent her career prior to politics as a senior biochemist, and among the many changes she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s noticed in the NHS since 2010 is the attack on staff pay and terms and conditions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McInnes believes this attack is a deliberate one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all part of the Tory ideology of privatisation,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf you attack workers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pay and conditions, it makes it much easier to privatise something. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what they are planning to do.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe future for us is quite scary\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

All the health workers UniteLive spoke to agreed on one point \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that a Conservative government in May would sound the death knell for the NHS as we know it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Adrian Atterbury, another biomedical scientist at Brighton and Sussex Hospitals University Trust, argues that he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be surprised if everything he does were to become privatised.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Atterbury cited NHS privatisation disasters such as Hinchingbrooke<\/a>, saying that another five years of the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 slash-and-privatise agenda would be disastrous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAt the moment, when you have a private company doing what we do, they either become so efficient that they can no longer do their jobs properly, or the service they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re running no longer becomes profitable so they pull out altogether, knowing that the NHS is still there to pick up the pieces,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf we become a private company, then there is no one, once we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gone. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing to fall back on.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Evans expressed serious concern over the prospect of another five years of Tory rule.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bEven though we [the NHS] provides a better service [than the private sector], better quality assurance and even a faster turnaround, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all about the money, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all about the pounds and pence,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Evans said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe future for us quite scary.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was a view shared by McInnes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf the Tories win in May, the NHS will be lead down the road of irreversible privatisation,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be exaggerating if I said that a Tory government would turn the NHS into nothing more than a brand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt would mean eventually requiring people to pay for health. It would mean private health insurance companies \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and it would mean total destruction of the NHS.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Labour government hopes<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Atterbury was hopeful that an incoming Labour government will save the NHS from the brink of untrammelled privatisation. And he had one message for them:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTell us what needs to be achieved and let us get on with it and achieve it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bStop having people who are too far away from the day to day of the job making all the decisions for us. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge waste of time and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a huge, huge waste of money.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Evans said that a Labour government would need to have a long-term plan for the NHS as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t just think of the next five years,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bA large number of disciplines, it can take 13 to 18 years to get the very best, which we do provide. But the investment has to be there, the training has to be there, and the commitment has to be there. The key thing is that the NHS has to be provided by the NHS.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McInnes said the key to an NHS protected from private interests is getting rid of the health and social care act, something that Labour has specifically committed to in its manifesto.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe act very bizarrely withdrew the health secretary\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s duty to provide for a comprehensive health service to all, a duty that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been in place since 1948,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she explained.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bA Labour government would reinstate this duty,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 McInnes added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bLabour will also undo the central requirement to tender NHS services that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s embedded in the act. This will attack the very core of the problem that the Tories have created.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To read more about how the Tories have wreaked havoc on the NHS, get all the verified facts and figures here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Aneurin Bevan, chief architect of the NHS, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe NHS will last as long as there are folk left with the faith to fight for it,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 perhaps he had a premonition of the state the service would be in two generations hence.   The NHS is at a crossroads — its very existence now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[224,29],"wps_subtitle":"Labour must win to save NHS from untrammelled privatisation","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3765"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3771,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3765\/revisions\/3771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}